Is this going to be a game changer to boost popularity of outdoor quad skating?

Concept :
On Wheelz makes you able to clip wheels onto almost any shoe, get your own style and roll in any circumstance with your own, personalized, skates. On Wheelz it’s : Skates adaptable to any look for any circumstance, be it a means to roll to work or a fashion statement, always making your personal style greater. The clip* out system itself allows its user to start with a stroll then elegantly switch to a roll, without making a single change to one's outfit, style and personality.

I have my doubts about the way the sole latching H/W sockets are embedded in the sole with glue. Despite my love affair with Shoe Goo over the years, IMO, if the suspension is set stiff, and a lot of skating up on the wheel edges is happening, a flexible sole is going to concentrate too much flexing leverage onto the glue holding the sole embedded latching H/W and gradually rip it out.

I am also concerned as to how thick the sole has to be to accept this H/W without your foot feeling it when walking.

The process of setting up a pair of shoes with these four sole embedded H/W items seems tedious and labor intensive. How does is average guy even going to be able to evaluate whether or not the shoes they desire will meet the minimum specification for properly accepting the conversion/upgrade?

How much will the labor cost for the shoe sole hole cuts and H/W install add to the total package price?

What agents in USA will be offering this installation service? How does a skater ensure that plates will end up mounted where the skater needs them to be, and not where the agent installer "thinks" they should go?

I have been formulating different, quick ON/OFF ways of attaching plates to soles for many years, and my conclusions have been and remain that engaging plate along the outer edge of the sole, not in the middle, is the better way to do this. Main reason being that there is not a lot of WEAR going to be happening along the sole edges compared to the bottoms.

I had a pair of shoes like this about 15 years ago. Actually, the clip mechanism on those appears to be better than these (from what I remember). There are several downsides, but they are skatable for someone just looking to cruise down the sidewalk.

The tech is not a gamechanger. It's a question of marketing.

__________________
You don't improve by training until it hurts; you improve by training after it hurts.

Hi, I've been beta testing Onwheelz for a couple of month now. I've had a pair of K2 "phenomen" step in quad skates before (among other pairs of quad skates).

They are nothing alike. K2 had its own shoes and own plates, which were bad plates (very long, very heavy, no precision at all) and bad shoes ( hard sole, no fit, etc). Well , you could skate them, and it was nice to be able to go on skate to the theatre and then clip of your plates, but I never get any pleasure in skating them.

On wheelz are very different. Plates are Rolle Line blaster (for the high end, the more affordable ones are on sure Grip Rock), which is a very good plate. Shoes are high end sneaker. Not the best shoes for skates, but good enough, comfortable, and you get full control thanks to the onwheelz system and it's full foot system between shoe and plate. the system is installed in the shoes with a souple insole, so the shoe sole is not hard like in K2 or old inline step in boots. I walked them for hours in Paris streets with pleasure. I would not have been able to walk for ours with the K2 shoes.

As for the system in itself, it's very reliable. Well, it's only be a couple of month, but I skated them a lot, outdoor skating, but also for roller derby. I've had some training session with them, and even played a bout during french men championships. had no issues with them.

Of course there are downsides.
It adds weight.
You lose most of the shoe suspension, as there are parts on the heel of the shoes.
And as I was supposed to test the product the way final customer will get it, I did not had the choice in the way the plates were mounted. But as soon as I get their approuval, I'll unmount them and mount the blasters back on the intermediary plate just the way I like it.

I but they are skatable for someone just looking to cruise down the sidewalk.

I skate the Airforce1/Blaster everyday since 8 month.
I've replaced all my pair of skates with this one. It's more than "skatable". You can just, slide, well in fact do whatever you do with another pair of quadskates.

Quote:

Originally Posted by WJCIV

The tech is not a gamechanger. It's a question of marketing.

I can only talk for myself, but it changed my life

I hope you have oneday the possibilty to have a pair and see for yourself, as being deeply involved in the project, I'll let the backers talk about the product.

I just can not imagine why I would want a pair of shoes that will clip into a skate plate. If the bottom of the shoe gets filled up with dirt, will that not prevent the shoe from clipping on the plate? If so then basically, I will have a pair of shoes that I can not use as a pair of shoes.

I have a pair of Rollerblade Nature skates they made back in the mid '90s. I liked them so much I immediately bought a second pair in case they stopped making them, which they did after just one year. Rollerblade thought they might make a good campus shoe/skate but it never took off. The boot was made by Asolo - a mountaineering/hiking boot company in Italy and the frames connected just like ice climbing crampons. Rock solid. Frames were heavy fiberglass tho.

More successful was a company called Hypno who had a better looking shoe and great point of attachment. Frames were extruded aluminum. Much lighter skate than the Rollerblades. Alas...Hypno had a much longer run of maybe ten years but are now gone.

Will removable frames change the world of skating? I seriously doubt it. But quads certainly lend themselves to less bulky shoes required to make them work. And who gets to add the plates to the shoes? Most people don't know which end of a screwdriver to hold.

All of the inline removable boot skates that I have aver seen are not an appealing form of footwear in which to be doing normal walking around.

This is why only quad skates have much chance of succeeding in the marketplace for this concept.

The Onwheelz system solves the two main issues of quick & easy ON-OFF process, and a comfortable athletic shoe that mostly LOOKS & WORKS like a normal shoe with hopefully not too much intrusion from the two per sole pair of embedded H/W latching mechanisms.

My concerns are centered on whether or not the way this design focuses a lot of tension on the sole embedded H/W, in a way that tends to rip it out incrementally over time, and whether or not are they going to hold up over time.

The engineering of things that must handle high force & medium/high frequency cyclical loading is a real bitch. The peel strength specs of even the most aggressively bonding urethane type glues, though rather high, may still not be adequate to stand up the the service demands of this design.

Depending on how well the sole socket engages with the latching H/W and can distribute the cyclical force that a serious, low stance skater will apply there, and whether the glue bond itself has to accept all the load, this is the critical concern that will determine the longevity and durability.

IMO, because of the current rather small socket sole area size into which the front H/W socket piece engages, it may not adequately distribute the cyclical forces over a broad enough portion of the sole forefoot. As a result the sole can be flexed downward from the developed leverage of the plate lean giving downward tension. The stiffer the suspension, the greater the level of tension on the forefoot H/W socket, and the resulting sole flex will tend to concentrate forces in a way that may see the H/W being incrementally pried out of the sole socket from progressive separation of glue bond.

Another concern is for how the resulting downward flex distortion of the sole, at the peak force point of the push, will compromise foot support under the ball of the foot. This could limit how far a skater could go before their foot starts to ache from this reduction of support.

Most of these concerns will only apply to the most serious and aggressive kinds of quad skaters, but I do think they are still valid concerns.

In the gluing PIC of the OP, I was trying to decide if the socket is centered directly on the line that intersects the toe peak point, or is it at the more proper location closer to the outside of sole, and a bit offset from the toe peak line.

Then it occurred to me that socket location did not really matter since the plate can be laterally positioned wherever desired on the underside of the H/W board, while the top side of the H/W board still remains in sync with the sole edge.